I haven't read a book for years but I'm going to buy Jane Fonda's autobiography to read over the summer. I caught her plugging it on This Morning the other day and it sounds quite good. Never read an autobiography before.
After completing my degree in Economics and Politics I had what i suppose you could describe as a broadly authoritarian outlook on law and order. I believed that the police should be trusted to do their job and that most 'human rights' were often little more then ideological barriers to the efficient running of the criminal justice system. Why should rapists go free just because some insignificant part of the arrest process wasn't carried out properly, why should drug lords evade detention when it's clear to everyone including the police how they earn their living.
I suppose this is to some extent how the current government views law and order - 'it's clear he's a terrorist so should be put under house arrest', 'these cases are too complicated for a jury' 'maintaining national security means we can't use the evidence needed to convict him so lets put him in jail anyway'.
However reading 1984 showed me what could happen if you continue with that kind of thinking. It illustrates so well the true horror of what it would be like to never be free; to never be able to speak your mind; to have to agree that things you know are lies as true; to have to do everything 'big brother' tells you regardless of what it is; to live under constant oppression. All with the knowledge of what ever happens there was never any chance what so ever that you could ever be free.
I know it's an extreme case but it instilled in me a desire to help make sure that kind of future could never happen. Today i oppose all attempts by the government to interfer with fundamental human rights and i suppose i have 1984 to thank for it.
I read a book by a young woman who had been dumped by her husband after they emigrated to Australia. She was left without relatives or friends and had to go it alone, which was difficult as she considered herself a mouse. She told how she built her confidence and used passive resistance to deal with people rather than get upset.
It didn't change my whole life, but it helped me to deal with picky folk around me who made my blood boil. I learned how to look them in the eye and sweetly tell them how they were being personal and unecessarily rude. It worked.
I wish I could remember the book and the author though.
I haven't read a book for years but I'm going to buy Jane Fonda's autobiography to read over the summer. I caught her plugging it on This Morning the other day and it sounds quite good. Never read an autobiography before.
Jane Fonda's relationship with her Father Henry Fonda, was very difficult. After reading the book, try watching the film Golden Pond. Henry Fonda played her Father in the film. I bet she found that difficult to do.
Barrys Bull Hit and Oulandy, what were they called and why did they have such an effect? Hope you don't mind me asking. Very interested. I love books.
I read a book of Orwell s essays when I was 14 and they stayed in my mind, particularly one called "Down the mine" which described the terrible hardship of life underground working in a coalmine. I could never forget the horror of that. Then I went on to read the rest of his books and they opened my eyes to a world of corruption, cynicism, injustice and desperate poverty. I also read other authors on similar themes who made a powerful impression, such as Steinbeck and Dickens. Then 19th and 20th century Russian and French authors on great human, social and political themes (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Zola and the existentialists, e.g. Sartre) and after that literature about the holocaust, such as the books of Primo Levi and Thomas Kenneally s Shindler s Ark. Reading those books was like going on a journey more than anything, often exhausting and harrowing.
There was a book I read about a girl who had autism and the story was about her life at school and about how she had no friends and how the teachers never truly understood her. I never did read the book all the way through, but it did make me appreicate my life a lot more, as I thought that I was one of the worst off at the school I went to at the time!
After completing my degree in Economics and Politics I had what i suppose you could describe as a broadly authoritarian outlook on law and order. I believed that the police should be trusted to do their job and that most 'human rights' were often little more then ideological barriers to the efficient running of the criminal justice system. Why should rapists go free just because some insignificant part of the arrest process wasn't carried out properly, why should drug lords evade detention when it's clear to everyone including the police how they earn their living.
I suppose this is to some extent how the current government views law and order - 'it's clear he's a terrorist so should be put under house arrest', 'these cases are too complicated for a jury' 'maintaining national security means we can't use the evidence needed to convict him so lets put him in jail anyway'.
However reading 1984 showed me what could happen if you continue with that kind of thinking. It illustrates so well the true horror of what it would be like to never be free; to never be able to speak your mind; to have to agree that things you know are lies as true; to have to do everything 'big brother' tells you regardless of what it is; to live under constant oppression. All with the knowledge of what ever happens there was never any chance what so ever that you could ever be free.
I know it's an extreme case but it instilled in me a desire to help make sure that kind of future could never happen. Today i oppose all attempts by the government to interfer with fundamental human rights and i suppose i have 1984 to thank for it.
Comments
After completing my degree in Economics and Politics I had what i suppose you could describe as a broadly authoritarian outlook on law and order. I believed that the police should be trusted to do their job and that most 'human rights' were often little more then ideological barriers to the efficient running of the criminal justice system. Why should rapists go free just because some insignificant part of the arrest process wasn't carried out properly, why should drug lords evade detention when it's clear to everyone including the police how they earn their living.
I suppose this is to some extent how the current government views law and order - 'it's clear he's a terrorist so should be put under house arrest', 'these cases are too complicated for a jury' 'maintaining national security means we can't use the evidence needed to convict him so lets put him in jail anyway'.
However reading 1984 showed me what could happen if you continue with that kind of thinking. It illustrates so well the true horror of what it would be like to never be free; to never be able to speak your mind; to have to agree that things you know are lies as true; to have to do everything 'big brother' tells you regardless of what it is; to live under constant oppression. All with the knowledge of what ever happens there was never any chance what so ever that you could ever be free.
I know it's an extreme case but it instilled in me a desire to help make sure that kind of future could never happen. Today i oppose all attempts by the government to interfer with fundamental human rights and i suppose i have 1984 to thank for it.
It didn't change my whole life, but it helped me to deal with picky folk around me who made my blood boil. I learned how to look them in the eye and sweetly tell them how they were being personal and unecessarily rude. It worked.
I wish I could remember the book and the author though.
Jane Fonda's relationship with her Father Henry Fonda, was very difficult. After reading the book, try watching the film Golden Pond. Henry Fonda played her Father in the film. I bet she found that difficult to do.
Was it a book from that cult you were in?
He broke his back when he came across it
Good post; very interesting.
Yes I read "War And Peace" when I was a child and it made me look at life differently ...